


Stella and Persephone

by goodgayegg



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Babies, CEO!Lexa, Clexa Parents, Cute Kids, F/F, Fluff, Single Parents, artist!Clarke, soft!clexa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 10:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10489092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgayegg/pseuds/goodgayegg
Summary: Clarke is an overworked single mom of two. Sometimes that's a lot to handle. When it becomes too much, guess who's there to lend a hand?





	

Clarke swore she had only closed her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them, the late September sun had dipped beneath the treetops, bathing the park in warm umber. Mickey stirred in his stroller, burbling softly. She lifted herself off the wooden park bench and scanned the playground for her other child, chest constricting with each passing second as she failed to locate the girl. Not under the slide. Not on the swings. Not in the sandbox. 

“Stella?” Clarke called, not sure how she expected her daughter to hear her. As far as she could tell, the park was deserted. All the more responsible parents had probably already taken their kids inside and started preparing dinner. 

“Stella?!” What the fuck was she going to do? A wild instinct suggested she call her mother. She quickly suppressed it. Abby would only make her feel guiltier. Surely this kind of thing never happened when Clarke was a child. 

This was impossible. The playground was small, but the surrounding park was huge…and that’s assuming Stella hadn’t wandered out of the park—or been kidnapped! Jesus! Why hadn’t she taken Raven up on that offer of microchip locators? 

_Okay. Breathe, Clarke._ She pulled her baby into her arms, and his comforting warmth allowed her to take her first full breath in five minutes. _Okay. Assume Stella hasn’t been kidnapped. Where would she go?_

Clarke returned Mickey to his stroller and walked down the wooded trail as quickly as she could manage. _If she isn’t here, I’ll call someone._

After a few hundred feet, the trail opened onto a grassy hilltop. Clarke and Stella picnicked there in the summer. Stella loved picking wildflowers on the hill after they finished their food. The flowers would be long gone this late in the season, but a four-year-old wouldn’t know that. 

And there she was, just as safe and happy as she’d been when Clarke last saw her, though her dress had several new grass stains and there were browned leaves caught in her blonde pigtails. 

“Mommy!” Stella ran to Clarke and hugged her around the legs. 

“Oh, thank God.” Clarke scooped the young girl into her arms and held her tight. Stella’s chin settled on Clarke’s shoulder, where she couldn’t see the tears leaking from the corners of her mother’s eyes. “What were you thinking, baby? Running off while I…without me.”

“I’m sawy, Mommy. I wanted to play with Perse...Perse…”

“Per _seth_ one,” a small voice from behind Clarke offered. She turned to see a dark-skinned girl a bit older than Stella (and much cleaner). The girl grinned, revealing three missing teeth as the source of her adorable lisp. 

“Where are your parents, Persephone?” 

“My mama’s over there.” She pointed toward a tall, slim figure a few feet away. The angle of the setting sun left the woman in shadow as she approached. 

“You must be Stella’s mom.” 

“Yeah, Clarke. Hi.” She met the woman’s eyes and everything stopped for a moment. If Clarke had felt inadequate before, that was nothing to how she felt now. Not only was this woman a better parent than Clarke, she was also unfairly beautiful: bright gray-green eyes, long, wavy brown hair gathered over one wiry shoulder, severe jawline and business attire offset by her charming smile. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a magazine or a limousine. Her whole being emanated effortless grace.

The woman held a hand out to Clarke. “I’m Lexa.” _Lexa…what a sexy name._ Clarke set her daughter down and clasped Lexa’s hand, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. 

“Clarke? Are you alright?”

Clarke reminded herself to smile. “I’m fine.” Her name sounded so good in Lexa’s voice. _God, even her voice is sexy!_ Clarke shook her head and tried to come back to Earth. “God. I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. I swear I’m not always this spacey. I just closed my eyes for a minute, and I guess I feel asleep. When I woke up, Stella was gone.” Clarke looked over at her daughter, seated in the grass and whispering to Persephone. She thanked whatever higher power might have been listening that Stella was okay. 

Lexa surprised Clarke with a gentle squeeze to her shoulder. “It’s alright, Clarke. She’s fine. Everything worked out.” 

"No thanks to me! If you weren’t here, who knows what would have happened?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Clarke. Parenting is tiring.” Clarke almost wished Lexa would stop saying her name. It sent a pleasant tingle through her core each time, like a cup of coffee warming her from the inside out, and there was no way Lexa could have missed the corresponding tiny shivers. Embarrassing.

“It’s exhausting,” Clarke agreed, eyes settling on her son in his stroller. “Mickey was up half the night crying, and Stella had me up at 6:15 this morning. I’m a single mom, and I work from home, so it’s just me and the kids 24/7, though Stella has preschool three days a week now. My parents help when I’ve got appointments, but I never really get a break. I feel bad for even wanting one.”

“I know what you mean. It’s tough raising a child by yourself. But worth it. I was raised by a nanny, and while I know that would make my life easier, I could never do that to my child.” 

_So she’s single…_ The thought surprised Clarke, almost as though it had come from someone else, some part of her that had been turned off for a long while. It had been nearly a year since Clarke had thought about another person romantically, and she had just met Lexa. Anyway, “Did you adopt Persephone by yourself?”

Lexa furrowed her brow. “I never said I adopted her.”

“I’m so sorry! I just thought…” Clarke covered her face with her hands. Great. She was making a complete ass of herself in front of this beautiful, fantastic woman. She looked up through her fingers to see Lexa shaking with silent laughter. 

“Clarke. She looks nothing like me. Of course I adopted her. And, yes, it’s always been just the two of us.”

“That’s great. It must have taken a lot of courage to do that. I couldn’t have gotten through Stella’s first few months without Finn.”

“That’s her dad.” 

It wasn’t a question, but Clarke responded anyway. “Mmhmm. Mickey’s, too. He was great. He’d get home from work and still have the energy to make dinner for us, even if I was half-asleep and cranky and only wanted chocolate.” Clarke caught herself babbling and looked down at the grass. She was probably oversharing, and to a stranger. Somehow, it didn’t feel strange. 

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you two.”

“Well, I mean, he…he died last year.”

Lexa brought an exasperated hand to her forehead. “Now I’m the one who’s assuming things. I’m sorry for your loss, Clarke.”

Clarke didn’t tell Lexa it was okay, though she wasn’t offended. The truth was that Finn’s death was not okay. His absence still stung, still left a hole in her bed, in her house, in her life. It didn’t rule her every thought anymore, but it had changed her.

“It’s hard. But Stella was too young to understand, and Mickey was only a few months old. In a way, that made it easier. Still, it tears me up that they won’t be able to remember their dad.” She took a deep breath and swallowed her tears. 

Lexa’s hand found Clarke’s shoulder again. “I lost someone special to me, too. Her name was Costia.” The women shared a moment of silence. “I adopted Sephie as soon as I could after that.”

“Sephie?”

“’Persephone’ doesn’t lend itself to nicknaming. It was the best I could do. The full name is a mouthful for a little kid, I know, but she won’t be a little kid for most of her life.”

“Persephone is an interesting name.”

“I was a Classics major. Can you tell?” She winked, and Clarke’s heart beat a little faster. “There’s something to be said for unique names. I’ve never met another Lexa, and I like it that way. But ‘Persephone’ is more than that. I named her after the bearer of spring, because that’s what having her means to me. She makes the whole world bright and colorful.” 

“Wow. That’s poetic. It’s a beautiful name.”

“So is Stella.”

“Her dad chose it, but I love it, too. She’s our little star.”

“And Mickey?”

“After my father-in-law. I always thought we’d be more creative than that, but Finn said when saw his father holding baby Mickey for the first time, he just knew. I, personally, was passed out from labor at the time, but what can you do?” She was babbling again. Lexa didn’t seem to mind, or at least she wasn’t displaying her boredom. 

 

They walked back to the parking lot together, trading baby stories. Lexa had once left a two-year-old Sephie in her office for five minutes and come back to find an entire month’s paperwork covered in doodles. Stella had been suspended from daycare the previous year for repeatedly stripping on the playground. Clarke’s mother had trouble understanding the correct venue for conversation about the benefits of breastfeeding, specifically in reference to Clarke’s body, ruining an important dinner with a gallery curator. And, of course, the classic query: where’s the most embarrassing place your baby has vomited? Lexa won: the mayor’s wife had taken Sephie from her while Lexa posed for a picture with the mayor, and Sephie had ruined the woman’s designer pantsuit.

When they arrived at Clarke’s minivan, she found herself taking extra time, double-checking car seat straps and arranging the bags of toys and snacks in the back seat. She was dawdling, and if she were being honest with herself, she knew why. 

Lexa had been hovering a few feet behind the whole time, but when Clarke finally finished securing both her kids and turned to walk around to the passenger seat, Lexa stepped forward to block her path.

“Would you like to have dinner with us?”

 _Yes!_ This solved the awkward conundrum of etiquette that was asking for Lexa’s number. For parent-to-parent support, of course. “It’s getting kind of late.” Why was she trying to get out of this? She didn’t want to get out of it. If anything, she wanted in. 

“All the more reason not to drive home and cook.” It seemed Lexa wasn’t going to let her off that easy. 

“You’re sure it’s not too much trouble?” 

“No trouble at all, Clarke. I was going to take Sephie out, anyway. I got held up at the office today, but I figured it was one of the last warm days we’ll have this year and wanted to take her to the park to enjoy it. Seemed like a better use of time than cooking.”

“That’s one good thing about working from home: I can take the kids out any time I want. ¬¬Does your boss keep you late a lot?”

Lexa’s mouth quirked up on one side. “Well, I’m my own boss, but I do work myself harder than I should, if you ask my siblings. We run the company together. I try to go in early rather than stay late, so I’m ready to pick Sephie up from school, but I usually end up bringing her back to the office with me.” 

 

Lexa refused to tell Clarke where they were going for dinner: “A little mystery makes life more exciting.” It wasn’t hard to follow her, though. Even in rush hour traffic, the candy apple red sports car conscientiously using turn signals and observing the speed limit stood out.

The upscale Italian bistro looked like the kind of place Clarke might go for an anniversary or her mother’s birthday—if she had also just won the lottery. She couldn’t imagine what they were going to find for the kids there. And how was she going to pay for it?

Clarke lifted Stella out of her car seat, settled Mickey in his stroller, swallowed her pride and approached Lexa’s car. “Lexa. I can’t afford to eat here.”

“Don’t worry, Clarke. I’ll take care of it. I invited you, after all.” Lexa’s soft smile quieted Clarke’s worries before bringing up entirely new ones. Clarke hated taking money from anyone, even her parents. Yet she felt she couldn’t say no to this woman—or she didn’t want to. 

The restaurant was nearly empty. Then again, they were operating on young children’s eating schedules. They were immediately shown to a table in the back room, where the silent, smiling waitress produced a high chair for Mickey and coloring pages with mess-free markers for the girls. Clarke had just begun to peruse the menu—thankfully printed in English—when Lexa stood to greet a tanned woman with wild brown hair, dressed in a chef’s uniform and carrying a wire basket of herbed breadsticks.

“A little warning would be nice, Lex. I can’t always pull out the VIP treatment at a moment’s notice.” 

“Years of experience beg to differ.” Lexa kissed the woman on both cheeks and they embraced. “Clarke, this is Luna, the only Michelin star chef I know who’s just as happy making buttered linguini for Sephie as she is searing scallops, concocting marinades and ‘parmagianing’ chicken breasts.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“Impossibly fabulous, maybe.”

Clarke felt like she was intruding on a private moment. She noticed Luna look pointedly between Clarke and Lexa and raise a skeptical eyebrow at the latter. Lexa didn’t quite meet her eyes.

Luna set the breadsticks on the table. “Alright. I’ll let you crazy kids get back to your…evening. Should I send the kids’ food out first?”

“That would be perfect. Thank you.” Clarke could use the time to help Mickey before her own food arrived, and the girls would probably get antsy before the adults’ dinner was ready.

“No problem. If there’s anything you need to make yourselves more comfortable, don’t hesitate to ask anyone _but_ me.” Luna smiled conspiratorially at Clarke. “Just joking. You can have anything you need, hon. This one on the other hand….” She indicated Lexa, who gasped in exaggerated mock offense, pressing a hand to her chest. Luna shook her head and walked back to the kitchen, ruffling Persephone’s hair as she went. 

“That was…interesting…” Clarke tried to keep her tone civil. She didn’t know why it presented such a difficult task.

“Luna definitely makes an impression,” Lexa sighed. “I love her anyway.”

Clarke’s grip on her menu tightened appreciably. 

“As a friend, of course!” Lexa added. 

Clarke had no idea how to respond to that, so she asked Lexa’s dinner recommendation. They ordered their meals, Clarke doing her best not to concentrate on the prices, and the waitress brought them each a small salad and a glass of white wine while they waited. 

It was her kids’ first time in a fancy restaurant, and Clarke was grateful that they both behaved and ate their pasta, though Mickey was by no means a neat eater. With the three extra napkins provided by the waitress, Clarke covered the boy and the floor around his high chair, minimizing the damage. 

Lexa waved off every apologetic glance from Clarke. “Trust me, Sephie was worse.”

“Was not!” Sephie contributed, dribbling butter down her chin in the process. 

“Oh, yes you were, young lady.”

Clarke put her hand up to hide her mouth from Lexa and stage whispered to the girl. “Don’t worry, Sephie. I’m sure your mom was even worse.” 

“Forget about sharing any of my food, Clarke,” Lexa huffed, lower lip jutting out in a pout worthy of Stella. “You’re on your own.” Sephie and Stella laughed at Lexa’s childish behavior, and soon all of them joined in. 

Lexa collected herself. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about the mess. I’ve got an in with the owner.”

“Luna?” 

“Me.”

Of course. Of _course_ Lexa owned the place. What was Clarke getting herself into? 

“Do you own a lot of restaurants?”

“Some. I’m in real estate. We mostly deal with mixed-use buildings and big office complexes. You don’t want to hear about it. It’s not particularly thrilling.”

“Why do you do it, then?”

“You know, Clarke, I’m pretty sure you’re the first person who’s ever asked me that.” Lexa sighed, leaning back in her chair, eyes leaving Clarke’s and settling on the chandelier above the table. 

“This company has been in my family for generations. As long as there have been buildings in this city, my family has been here, selling and managing them. That’s always been the deal. I never worried about money growing up. I got to go to college anywhere I wanted and study mythology, pre-Christian European civilizations and Ancient Greek. And now I’m returning the favor, opening those same opportunities for my daughter.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a child, don’t you think?”

“I survived it. I think it made me stronger, having a sense of discipline and direction.” 

“But shouldn’t life be about more than just surviving? What about following your dreams?”

“After you fulfill your duty, maybe. My parents worked hard and retired when I was old enough to take over as CEO. Now they’ve got the rest of their lives to travel, read, golf and be free.” 

Clarke shook her head. “So you’re supposed to wait ‘til you’re 65 to live the life you want?”

“55, if I’m lucky,” Lexa quipped. 

“You deserve better than that, Lexa.” 

Lexa scoffed. “You don’t even know me.” 

When Lexa retreated, Clarke noticed how close they had been: leaning across the table and almost meeting in the middle. Clarke followed her lead and sat up. Their entrees arrived before she could retort. 

The food was delicious (and Lexa did give Clarke a bite of her steak). Clarke felt spoiled, overwhelmed, but she couldn’t help but hope for this to happen again. 

“I’m sorry if I offended you earlier.”

“You didn’t offend me. It’s a rare pleasure to talk candidly with someone about my work. It’s usually business reporters who’ve already made up their minds to venerate or hate me or people who have a direct financial stake in what I’m doing.”

Clarke nodded in a manner she hoped looked thoughtful, her mouth full of chicken Marsala. 

“So, Clarke, you must love your job to feel so strongly about this.”

“I do. I’m an artist.” Clarke couldn’t help it; every time those three words left her lips, she smiled. “I take on some graphic design projects for local businesses to help pay the bills, and I’ve illustrated a couple picture books, but I make sure to devote at least as much time to my painting as I do to that.”

“Wow.” 

Clarke wasn’t sure if that was a positive response. “It’s not going to make me a millionaire, but some things are more important than money. I don’t think I would’ve survived losing Finn if I’d had a job I didn’t love.” Lexa frowned, and Clarke realized she may have said something wrong. “I’m not saying your life is wrong. I respect that you can sacrifice for your family. My mom planned for me to be a doctor like she is. But I was miserable in pre-med, and she could tell. We disagree about a lot of things, but she eventually supported my switch to art.” 

“I’m happy for you, Clarke.” 

“What about you? If you weren’t a CEO, what do you think you’d be doing?”

Lexa didn’t wait even a full second before answering, slightly above normal speaking volume. “Writing. Poetry. And short stories. We need myths and allegories for the modern age. The ‘hero’s journey’ trope could use an overhaul. I’ve got a lot of issues with the way we tell stories in mass-market movies and TV shows, too.” She caught Clarke’s astonished expression and flushed. “I’ll get around to it someday.” 

Clarke reached across the table and laid her hand on Lexa’s. “Make sure you do.”

Lexa turned to the kids. “Now, who wants dessert?”

 

It was only 7:30 when they stepped out of the restaurant into the breezy autumn twilight, but Clarke had a baby to put to bed. Lexa insisted on following Clarke back to her apartment. Clarke didn’t want the night to end, either, so she acquiesced, leaving the girls in the living room with Lexa while she settled Mickey down in his crib.

“You have a lovely home, Clarke,” Lexa told her when she returned from the bedroom she shared with her son.

Clarke ran a hand through her disheveled hair, pulling it out of its loose bun and rubbing her sore neck. Her apartment was small and littered with pacifiers, paintbrushes, Goldfish crumbs, Legos and Barbie shoes. The ceiling in one corner of the living room was brown from a plumbing leak no one had come to fix. A haphazard collection of unfinished or unsold paintings obscured every wall. “I’m sure it’s nothing compared to yours.” 

“It’s perfect. I feel like I know you much better just by having poked around for ten minutes.”

 _Oh, God. She’s been poking around for ten minutes!_ “I hope you didn’t find anything too embarrassing,” she laughed, hoping her nervousness wasn’t entirely obvious. Clarke wasn’t used to people coming by, and she had a bad habit of leaving underwear around, not to mention the magazines she sometimes used for figure drawing inspiration. 

“Stella went to show Sephie her room. I had to occupy myself somehow.” She paused, a wry smile lighting her face, and Clarke’s nervousness grew. “I’ve only been looking at the paintings, I promise.”

Clarke didn’t know if scrutinizing her art was better or worse than finding a bra under a throw pillow. “Can I get you a drink?”

“What do you have?” Lexa stood and followed Clarke to the kitchen. Clarke tried to contain the voice in her head—that sounded suspiciously like her mother—shaming her for the dishes in the sink and the crayons on the floor. 

Clarke leaned into the fridge. “We’ve got orange juice, milk, fruit punch, ginger ale…”

“How about this?” Lexa reached over Clarke to pull something down from the top of the fridge: a bottle of cabernet that had been gathering dust since around the time she’d gotten married. 

“Sure.” It wasn’t as if she was going to drink it herself any time soon. She spent about five minutes searching for a corkscrew, pulled her only two wine glasses off the shelf above the sink and joined Lexa on the couch. She only drank half of her glass before her head fell back against the soft fabric of the couch. She drifted in and out of consciousness, dimly aware of a warm presence behind her and a pleasant tickling sensation on her scalp.

 

She awoke to find herself sprawled across her couch, tucked under the alpaca wool blanket her father had brought back from Peru and alone in the dark living room. She rubbed her eyes and groaned, forcing herself to get up and check on the kids. Mickey was, thank goodness, sleeping peacefully. She found the girls in Stella’s room with Lexa, weaving the woman’s hair into complicated asymmetrical braids. Clarke couldn’t stifle her giggles at the sight of the polished CEO cross-legged on Stella’s alphabet rug, wincing slightly as a sparkly pink brush snagged her mane.

“Okay, girls. I think that’s enough,” Clarke chided, pulling Lexa up of the floor. “It’s time to clean up and say good night.”

This set the girls groaning and whining, but they began replacing the toys in their boxes and bins. Clarke left them to it, returning to the living room to retrieve her guests’ jackets from the closet. 

Lexa stood awkwardly near the door, thumbs hooked in her pockets. “Thank you, Clarke.” 

“What for?” Lexa was the one who’d kept her child safe and paid for dinner.

“For tonight. For saying yes. For everything. Maybe you can’t tell, but I don’t get out much. My social interaction consists almost exclusively of my brother and sister, my parents, my daughter and clients making awkward small talk or trying to flirt with me. It’s nice to be with someone who doesn’t want anything from me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say _that_.” Clarke twirled a lock of hair around her index finger. “There are a few things I wouldn’t say no to.”

Lexa’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I’m so sorry! I’m tired. I’m drunk. I don’t know what came over me. You were just talking about unwanted advances and here I am—”

Lexa kissed her. Clarke’s mind felt like an entire orchestra had been shoved inside, trombones clanging against cymbals, violins screeching, bits of wood and metal reverberating off every mental surface. And then, when Lexa pulled back and held her gaze, the clamor resolved into music like she’d never imagined. 

“I hope that was one of the things you wouldn’t say no to.”

“I, uh…”

“…or I just completely screwed everything up…” Lexa moved to the shoe pile and busied herself tying her boots.

“Lexa, you didn’t screw up. I was just—I haven’t—it was…unexpected.”

“Good unexpected or bad unexpected?”

Clarke felt something boiling over inside her, reddening her cheeks. “Good, I think.” She took a deep breath and womaned up. “Definitely good.”

Clarke knew she was responsible for the smile she saw on Lexa’s face. It was a phenomenal feeling. 

“I had a really great time tonight,” she told Lexa when Lexa had her shoes and jacket on and had run out of distractions. They loitered by the door, shuffling around and sharing sideways glances. _Is this a date? It feels like a date. What’s the protocol here?_

“Me, too. It was lovely to meet you, Clarke.” There was that warm shiver again. “I was wondering—and please let me know if I’m too forward—would you perhaps want to have dinner again? Just the two of us this time?”

“I think I’d like that very much, Lexa.” 

This time the kiss was expected, but that didn’t make it any less brilliant. 


End file.
